Tag: engineering

The spiral galaxy M91

3:38 pm

spiral galaxy M91
Click for full release image.

Cool image time! The image to the right, reduced to post here, was released today by the Space Telescope Science Institute as part of a regular program using the Hubble Space Telescope to photograph galaxies.

This observation is part of an effort to build a treasure trove of astronomical data exploring the connections between young stars and the clouds of cold gas in which they form. To do this, astronomers used Hubble to obtain ultraviolet and visible observations of galaxies already seen at radio wavelengths by the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.

The galaxy is estimated to be about 55 million light years away, and is thought to have a supermassive black hole at its center with a mass somewhere between 9 and 38 million times the mass of the Sun.

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China’s astronauts to return after six month mission

12:40 pm

The new colonial movement: The three astronauts who have been on China’s Tiangong space station are about to return to Earth after completing a record six month mission.

Airspace closure notices indicate that Shenzhou-13 will return to Earth between 9:35 and 10:05 p.m. Eastern April 15 (9:35-10:05 local time, April 16) following departure from Tianhe.

The Shenzhou return capsule is planned to set down in a designated landing zone near Dongfeng in the Gobi Desert, Inner Mongolia.

Previous landings occurred in the grasslands of Siziwang, Inner Mongolia. Factors for the change include increasing population density around Siziwang, and the need to optimize for astronaut recovery as the duration of China’s spaceflight missions increases.

I suspect the change in landing location to inside China is also for security reasons. Tensions created by the Ukraine War has probably made China’s leaders reluctant to have their astronauts land anywhere but in China itself.

The article also outlines the upcoming plans for the next crew to Tiangong, which will be on board during the arrival of the station’s next two large modules.

The three-person Shenzhou-14 crew will be aboard the Tianhe space module for the arrival of two new modules, named Wentian and Mengtian, which will complete the three-module, T-shaped Chinese space station, later in the year.

Both of these large modules will be launched by China’s Long March 5B rocket. The previous launches of this rocket resulted in the crash of an out-of-control core stage because once it reached orbit it could not restart its engines to control its de-orbit. Though there have been hints that China may have upgraded the core stage’s engines, we do not know yet for certain if that includes the ability to restart it. If not, China should once again be prepared for some bad press as it threatens populated areas worldwide with these stages.

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Don’t launch it! Don’t spin it! Fire your orbital payloads from a gun!

11:59 am

Capitalism in space: It appears there is another company attempting to develop a different radical method for getting payloads into space. Instead of launching them on a rocket, or spinning them up to escape velocity (as Spinlaunch proposes), the startup Green Launch proposes to fire them from a cannon!

Green Launch COO and Chief Science officer Dr. John W. Hunter directed the Super High Altitude Research Project (SHARP) program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory some 30 years ago, and in the process led the development of the world’s largest and most powerful “hydrogen impulse launcher.”

This is effectively a long tube, filled with hydrogen, with helium and oxygen mixed in, and a projectile in front of it. When this gas cannon is fired, the gases expand extremely rapidly, and the projectile gets an enormous kick in the backside. The SHARP program built and tested a 400-foot (122-m) impulse launcher in 1992, breaking all railgun-style electric launcher records for energy and velocity, and launching payloads (including hypersonic scramjet test engines) with muzzle velocities up to Mach 9.

This approach, says Green Launch Business Development Director Eric Robinson, scales up far better than a spinning accelerator like the SpinLaunch system.

On its website the company claims this technology could not only be used for bulk payloads, like oxygen or water, but also “acceleration-tolerant payloads in the cube-sat class and smaller.” I am not sure how any complex hardware in any satellite, no matter how small, could withstand such accelerations, but once again, such technology could provide a cheap way to get simple cargo into orbit.

Below is a video of the company’s December 21, 2021 vertical test.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes 25th flight, the longest yet

10:51 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On April 8th the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 25th flight on Mars, traveling 2,310 feet at 18 feet per second while flying for 161.3 seconds.

The long distance was designed to take it out from the rough region dubbed Seitah and near the delta that is the prime geological target of the rover Perseverance.

The overview map shows the location of both rover and helicopter as of today. The red dot is Perseverance, the green dot is Ingenuity. The rover has now completed its entire planned travels, as announced in June 2021. Where it goes next has not as yet not been announced. According to the team, they plan to use Ingenuity to scout out possibly routes up onto the delta. This likely means the rover will likely spend some time at the base of the delta, getting as much data as it can, while Ingenuity does this scouting work.

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Boeing and NASA set May 19th for second Starliner unmanned demo launch

10:21 am

NASA yesterday announced May 19th as the new launch date for Boeing’s second attempt to complete the first unmanned Starliner demo mission to ISS.

The uncrewed mission will test the end-to-end capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft and Atlas V rocket from launch to docking and return to Earth at one of five designated landing zones in the western United States. Following a successful completion of the OFT-2 mission, NASA and Boeing will determine a launch window for NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT), Starliner’s first flight with astronauts aboard.

The first unmanned demo flight in December 2019 failed to dock with ISS and had to be cut short due to serious software issues. The launch of the second unmanned demo flight was scrubbed mere hours before launch in August of 2021 due to serious valve issues.

Thus, Boeing’s manned capsule is more than two years behind schedule. Not only has Boeing had to pay more than $400 million for a second demo mission, the delays have caused a lot of business with NASA and with tourists to instead go to SpaceX. Hopefully, the company has finally fixed all issues and will succeed and begin manned operations later this year.

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Third SLS dress rehearsal countdown scrubbed before completion

1:29 pm

NASA engineers today scrubbed their third attempt to complete a dress rehearsal countdown of the agency’s giant SLS rocket when a leak was detected in a hydrogen fuel line.

The team will not conduct the terminal countdown activities today as planned and will assess next steps after today’s operations.

The problem appears to be “a leak … in the tail service mast umbilical.”

It is not clear yet how much of the countdown and fueling will be completed. Because of a faulty valve in the upper stage, NASA management had already decided to eliminate fueling of the rocket’s upper stage from the rehearsal. The problem today appears to involve the core first stage’s hydrogen tanks, which are presently partly filled only about 5%. Based on their last tweet, it appears they have not drained the tank, though they apparently will not continue the rehearsal today.

UPDATE: NASA just tweeted the following:

Teams have confirmed they have satisfied the test objectives for the ICPS [upper stage] LH2 [hydrogen tank] chilldown and after gathering additional data, will work to drain propellant from the rocket. They will inspect the TSMU umbilical connection, review data, and establish a go-forward plan.

This sounds as if the agency might decide they have completed enough of the dress rehearsal to consider it complete, and will now roll the rocket back to the vehicle assembly building for further check out.

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SpaceX goes full speed ahead on construction of Starship launchpad in Florida

9:17 am

Capitalism in space: Faced with regulatory delays caused by the Biden administration that are preventing further Starship launches from Boca Chica, SpaceX has accelerated construction of a new Starship launchpad at its facility in Florida.

Compared to SpaceX’s Starbase tower assembly [in Boca Chica], Florida Starship work appears to be proceeding at a similar pace. SpaceX began assembling the fourth Florida tower section about 30 days after starting the first, while Starbase took about 25 days to reach the same point. However, SpaceX does appear to be taking a slightly different approach for Pad 39A. On top of tower section assembly, SpaceX is constructing an extra four sets of the small concrete foundations and steel frames each tower section is assembled on, implying that Starship’s Florida launch tower could be almost entirely prefabricated before SpaceX begins to combine those sections.

Meanwhile, Boca Chica remains blocked. While the FAA says it will issue approval of its environment reassessment by the end of this month, SpaceX would be foolish to believe this. It has become very clear that the Biden administration has so far allowed the federal bureaucracy free rein to obstruct SpaceX. For the company to think things will suddenly change now is to be living a fantasy. It must move forward to satisfy its investors.

Worsening the situation in Texas was the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to suspend the permit process on a request by SpaceX to expand its Boca Chica facility. It appears SpaceX failed to provide the Corps some required information, possibility because the company sees no reason now to complete this expansion if the Biden administration is going to ban Starship launches from Texas.

Faced with this political situation, Texas governor Greg Abbott yesterday claimed he is fighting the stonewalling by the Biden administration, but provide no specifics:

“What I am going to do if Biden interferes with the ability of SpaceX to launch from Boca Chica; I am going to be working every step of the way to make sure that they are going to be able to launch from Boca Chica. We heard the vision from Mr. Patel himself about what they are working on and our job is to make sure they are able to achieve their vision. And I have worked with Elon Musk very closely with regard to Tesla and the Giga factory in Austin, Texas. And we will be working with him very closely, every step of the way in Boca Chica for the future of SpaceX. We want that future and that vision to come from Boca Chica, from Brownsville, Texas.”

Allow me to translate this political blather into plain English: “I can’t or won’t do anything, but I am now going to make a superficial claim of action so my Texas constituents won’t get angry at me.”

It appears more and more that the first orbital test flight of Starship will take place in Florida, not Texas. And if so, it will be delayed for at least another six months because of this government interference.

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Europe removes its science instruments from future Russian lunar missions

8:43 am

The Europe Space Agency (ESA) yesterday announced that because of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine it will no longer fly any science instruments on three upcoming Russian unmanned lunar probes.

ESA will discontinue cooperative activities with Russia on Luna-25, -26 and -27. As with ExoMars, the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the resulting sanctions put in place represent a fundamental change of circumstances and make it impossible for ESA to implement the planned lunar cooperation. However, ESA’s science and technology for these missions remains of vital importance. A second flight opportunity has already been secured on board a NASA-led Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission for the PROSPECT lunar drill and volatile analysis package (originally planned for Luna-27). An alternative flight opportunity to test the ESA navigation camera known as PILOT-D (originally planned for Luna-25) is already being procured from a commercial service provider.

In other words, Europe is switching to the many private American companies that are developing lunar landers for NASA science instruments. It has also signed onto a Japanese lunar mission. All have payload space, and all are willing to take the cash of a new customer.

Meanwhile, this is how Dmitry Rogozin responded to this decision:

“Good riddance! One less European dame off our backs, so Russia should go far with a lighter load,”

To sum this all up, when it comes to space, the Ukraine invasion has been Russia’s loss, and everyone else’s gain. Even if the invasion were to end today, it will take at least a decade to re-establish Russia’s business ties with the west.

Unfortunately, the invasion will cost the Ukraine as well. In making the above announcement ESA officials also said that it is looking for alternatives to the Ukrainian rocket engines used in its Vega-C upper stage.

At the news conference, ESA also discussed the future of its small Vega rocket, which relies on Ukraine-built engines in its upper stage. The engines are manufactured by the Ukrainian company Yuzhmash, which is based in the tech city of Dnipro. Although Dnipro has been under heavy bombardment, there have been no official reports so far about damage to Yuzhmash. It is, however, clear that ESA doesn’t expect to continue its partnership with the company in the future. “We now have sufficient engines for 2022 and 2023,” Aschbacher said. “We are working on options for 2024 and onwards based on different technologies.”

Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA’s director of space transportation, added: “We are working on engine opportunities within Europe and outside of Europe, which are either tested or, even better, already existing and fully qualified.”

Whether ESA completely breaks off its partnership with the Ukraine however is not certain. Should the war continue to favor the Ukraine, then it could be that partnership will continue. Only time will tell. Right now, it is simply prudent for ESA to look for more stable alternatives.

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Frozen lava in Mars’ volcano country

5:31 pm

The frozen lava of the Athabasca flood plain
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be at first glance a relatively featureless plain with a lighter material covered by a patchwork of darker material.

Note however the lack of craters. Except for several faint depressions near the image’s center, there are none. And those depressions look like the expression of craters that have been covered by material. Is the two-toned surface here an expression of past lava flows? Or are we seeing an ice-sheeted plain, with the patches representing higher terrain above that plain?

The overview map below answers the question somewhat clearly.
» Read more

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A tour at rocket startup Phantom Space

2:45 pm

Jim Cantrell at Phantom

Creating a new rocket company is not something anyone can do. Nor is it something that even smart people can do, nonchalantly. The history of rocketry is littered with hundreds of attempts, almost all of which failed.

Jim Cantrell, pictured on the right standing next to one of the first test prototypes for a new rocket being made by his new company, Phantom Space, is one such person. In the mid-2010s Cantrell partnered with a number of others to found the company Vector, hoping to be one of the first smallsat rocket companies to launch a cheap and efficient rocket placing tiny satellites into orbit. At the time, Cantrell and Vector were racing neck and neck with Rocket Lab for the honor of being the first to do so.

While Rocket Lab succeeded in 2018, and has since completed more than twenty launches, Vector ended up on the ash heap of history, going bankrupt in 2019. The company’s failure was mostly due to problems with its rocket engine, which in turn caused one of its major investors to back out.

Cantrell however is apparently someone who does not take defeat quietly. Using what he had learned at Vector, in 2021 he started a new rocket company, Phantom Space, with a target date for its first test launch the summer of 2023.

Today Cantrell gave me a quick tour of Phantom’s operations here in Tucson.
» Read more

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Webb’s coldest instrument reaches operating temperature

1:32 pm

The engineering team announced today that the mid-infrared instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope has now cooled to its operating temperature of -447 degrees Fahrenheit, less than 7 kelvin degrees above absolute zero.

On April 7, Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) – a joint development by NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) – reached its final operating temperature below 7 kelvins (minus 447 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 266 degrees Celsius).

Along with Webb’s three other instruments, MIRI initially cooled off in the shade of Webb’s tennis-court-size sunshield, dropping to about 90 kelvins (minus 298 F, or minus 183 C). But dropping to less than 7 kelvins required an electrically powered cryocooler. Last week, the team passed a particularly challenging milestone called the “pinch point,” when the instrument goes from 15 kelvins (minus 433 F, or minus 258 C) to 6.4 kelvins (minus 448 F, or minus 267 C).

Before science operations can begin the instruments still need further calibration and testing. Expect the first infrared images sometime in the next month or so.

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Space Perspectives unveils luxurious interior of Neptune high altitude balloon

9:41 am

Capitalism in space: Space Perspectives has now unveiled the high class stateroom interior that it plans to put inside its Neptune high altitude balloon that will take tourists to 30+ miles altitude.

Space Perspective just released artist’s illustrations of the interior of Spaceship Neptune, which will include 360-degree panoramic windows and even a restroom with a view. The announcement Tuesday (April 12) coincided with the anniversary of the first human spaceflight by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.

Based on the imagery, Spaceship Neptune’s cabin appears to come in at least a couple of configurations. One has reclining seats, for example, while another with couches can accommodate a “more intimate dinner for two or special event,” Space Perspective representatives said in a statement on Tuesday.

Space Perspective will provide food and beverage services, and the capsule features mood lighting that can be dimmed to see stars or the curvature of Earth outside. Also included in the capsule’s “Space Lounge” will be a telescope, interactive screens and decorations such as floor lamps and plants to “remind us of the interconnected nature of our planet,” the company added.

The company hopes to begin commercial flights by ’24, each of which will last about six hours. Tickets are priced at $125K each, with the company saying it already has 600 people on its waiting list.

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MAVEN and Al-Amal scientists sign agreement to collaborate

1:20 pm

Scientists running the Mars orbiters MAVEN (from NASA) and Al-Amal (from the United Arab Emirates [UAE]) have signed an agreement to share data and — more importantly — coordinate their observations of the Martian atmosphere.

A new partnership that encourages the sharing of data between NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) project and the Emirates Mars Mission’s (EMM) Hope Probe (Al-Amal in Arabic) will enhance scientific returns from both spacecraft, which are currently orbiting Mars and collecting data on the Red Planet’s atmosphere. The arrangement is expected to add value to both MAVEN and EMM, as well as the scientific communities involved in analyzing the data the missions collect.

MAVEN went into orbit around Mars in 2014. Its mission is to investigate the upper atmosphere and ionosphere of Mars, offering an insight into how the planet’s climate has changed over time. “MAVEN and EMM are each exploring different aspects of the Martian atmosphere and upper-atmosphere system,” said Shannon Curry, MAVEN principal investigator from the University of California, Berkeley. “Combined, we will have a much better understanding of the coupling between the two, and the influence of the lower atmosphere on the escape to space of gas from the upper atmosphere.”

The EMM Hope Probe, which went into Mars orbit in 2021, is studying the relationship between the upper layer and lower regions of the Martian atmosphere, giving insight into the planet’s atmosphere at different times of the day and seasons.

What this agreement means is that the two science teams can more quickly match up the data from both orbiters, and figure out the relationships between both.

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ULA orders 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for its Vulcan upper stage

10:33 am

Capitalism in space: In order to meet its contract with Amazon to launch a lot of Kuiper satellites, ULA has now ordered 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Centaur upper stage of its new and as-yet unlaunched Vulcan-Centaur rocket.

Aerojet said this was the company’s largest ever contract for the RL10 engine. The large purchase of rocket engines comes on the heels of Amazon’s announcement April 5 that it selected Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA to launch up to 3,236 satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband constellation.

CEO Tory Bruno said ULA plans to fly Vulcan’s first mission late in 2022. Winning the Amazon deal would more than double the annual rate of Vulcan launches to as many as 25 per year, and ULA will ramp up production to meet the demand, Bruno said last week at the Space Symposium.

ULA’s engine choice for Vulcan’s upper stage dates back to 2018 when it selected a variant of the RL10, the same engine used to power the upper stages of ULA’s legacy rockets Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy. Over the past 60 years, more than 450 RL10 engines have flown on various ULA heritage vehicles.

Meanwhile, ULA hopes to get its first BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, needed for the Vulcan first stage, this summer. Vulcan-Centaur cannot make its first launch until it gets some flightworthy BE-4 engines, and these are now three years behind schedule.

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Russia backs off its threats to leave ISS partnership

10:19 am

In several short news posts on Russia’s state-run press today, the Putin government indicated that it has backed off from its threats to end the partnership at ISS quickly.

First, Roscosmos’s head, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that it will proceed with its barter deal with NASA and allow astronauts from NASA and others to fly on Soyuz while Russian astronauts fly on Dragon and eventually Starliner.

“Why give up something that is useful? Anna Kikina [Russian woman cosmonaut] flew to Houston (USA) to familiarize herself with the design of the modules of the ISS American segment and the Crew Dragon spacecraft whose crew she may join. On our part, we are not ruining anything and keep to preliminary accords, although we continue waiting for the government’s decision on the program of cross flights,” Rogozin explained.

Second, Rogozin made statements that suggested Russia will maintain its full partnership on ISS through ’24, and maybe beyond.

Now Russia has to set up its mind about the year until which it cooperates on the ISS project, Rogozin said. “Yes, the Americans want it [cooperation] to last until 2030. The previous talks said that it would be until 2028. But let me repeat again that we have to decide on the main thing: to continue cooperation on the ISS or switch to the ROSS [Russian Orbital Service Station]. Subsequently, we will decide on what to do with our two new modules on the ISS that we docked last year,” Rogozin said.

In other words, Russia ain’t going no where. It might decide eventually to launch a new core module for their own station, and then transfer the newer modules on ISS to it, but none of this will happen until a final date for ISS’s deorbit is established.

Based on Rogozin’s earlier bombastic threats, I had expected Russia to take a harder position. It appears cooler heads in Roscosmos convinced Rogozin and Putin that in terms of cost and safety, a quick exit made no sense.

This decision to back off was also probably influenced by Russia’s losses in the Ukraine. It is no longer in a strong negotiating position in anything, has lost almost all its economic partnerships with the west, and thus does not wish to lose the one partnership that remains, on ISS.

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Curiosity retreating from Greenheugh Pediment

10:05 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Because of the incredible roughness of the ground on the Greenheugh Pediment, the science team for the rover Curiosity has decided to make a major change in their route. Rather than continue their traverse across this terrain, as planned for years, they have decided to back off in order to protect Curiosity’s dinged wheels, and find a more friendly route up Mount Sharp.

“It was obvious from Curiosity’s photos that this would not be good for our wheels,” said Curiosity Project Manager Megan Lin of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads the mission. “It would be slow going, and we wouldn’t have been able to implement rover-driving best practices.”

The gator-back rocks aren’t impassable – they just wouldn’t have been worth crossing, considering how difficult the path would be and how much they would age the rover’s wheels.

So the mission is mapping out a new course for the rover as it continues to explore Mount Sharp, a 3.4-mile-tall (5.5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. As it climbs, Curiosity is able to study different sedimentary layers that were shaped by water billions of years ago. These layers help scientists understand whether microscopic life could have survived in the ancient Martian environment.

The plan is to retrace the rover’s path back through Gordon Notch and then head uphill though another gap that will take it directly onto the next sedimentary layer, dubbed the sulfate unit. On the overview map above, the red dotted line shows the long-planned route. The yellow lines indicate the area seen in the panorama I posted on April 6th, when Curiosity was at its farthest into the pediment. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s position two days ago. You can see that it has retreated backwards.

This change means the scientists will likely not get a close look at Gediz Vallis Ridge. However, it also means the rover will likely reach Gediz Vallis much sooner that previously planned.

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Neptune’s cooling when it should be warming

9:45 am

Neptune since 2006

The uncertainty of science: Observations of Neptune during the past seventeen years using the Very Large Telescope have shown the planet mostly cooling during this time period, even though Neptune was moving into its summer season.

Astronomers looked at nearly 100 thermal-infrared images of Neptune, captured over a 17-year period, to piece together overall trends in the planet’s temperature in greater detail than ever before. These data showed that, despite the onset of southern summer, most of the planet had gradually cooled over the last two decades. The globally averaged temperature of Neptune dropped by 8 °C between 2003 and 2018.

The astronomers were then surprised to discover a dramatic warming of Neptune’s south pole during the last two years of their observations, when temperatures rapidly rose 11 °C between 2018 and 2020. Although Neptune’s warm polar vortex has been known for many years, such rapid polar warming has never been previously observed on the planet. “Our data cover less than half of a Neptune season, so no one was expecting to see large and rapid changes,” says co-author Glenn Orton, senior research scientist at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the US.

The sequence of photos above show that change over time. Lower latitudes generally get darker, or cooler, while the south pole suddenly brightens, getting hotter, in 2020.

The scientists have no idea why this has happened, though they have theories, ranging from simple random weather patterns to the influence of the Sun’s sunspot cycle.

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Rocket Lab breaks ground on Neutron rocket factory

9:22 am

Capitalism in space: Rocket Lab yesterday broke ground on the construction of its larger proposed Neutron rocket factory at Wallops Island, Virginia, right next door to where the company plans to launch it.

The 250,000 square foot Neutron Production Complex is being constructed on a 28-acre site adjacent to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The complex will support Neutron production, assembly, and integration, and is expected to bring up to 250 highly-skilled roles to the region. Construction will also soon begin on a launch pad for Neutron at the southern end of Wallops Island, near Rocket Lab’s existing launch pad for the Electron rocket.

Neutron will largely reusable, its first stage returning to Earth for reuse, and carrying with it the skin of the second stage. The design combines this skin with the fairings that protect the payload and second stage engine, so that only the second stage engine is lost in orbit.

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ISRO hires company to build future PSLV rockets

9:13 am

Capitalism in space: For the first time, India’s space agency ISRO is about to hire a private company to build five PSLV rockets, rather than supervise the construction in-house.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and L&T consortium has emerged as the lowest bidder to make 5 Polar Space Launch Vehicles (PSLVs) for ISRO. “The company is the lead partner with L&T sharing the work. Other vendors too will be involved with the consortium in the manufacturing of the launch vehicles (LVs). However, the contract is yet to be formalised/ awarded,” HAL said in a statement.

If all goes as planned, the first rockets will be delivered late in ’24.

This contract changes less than it seems, though it is a step in the right direction. ISRO has for years hired private subcontractors to build its rockets and components. What is different now is that it appears that HAL is now the lead contractor, not ISRO. HAL however does not appear to own the rockets it builds, and thus will not be able to build more to sell launches to others. Until this happens, India’s space industry will remain wholly government run.

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Perseverance arrives at Three Forks at the base of Jezero Crater’s delta

12:01 pm

Panorama of delta in Jezero Crater
Original images found here, here, here, and here. Click for full resolution.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created from four navigation camera images taken by the Mars rover Perseverance on April 10th. Because the lens on Perseverance’s navigation cameras produce slightly curved images which are taken in pairs, the panorama is made of two parts, each a pair perfectly matched images looking from a different angle. I have overlapped the pairs but as you can see, the match at the center is imperfect. While this does not produce a single smooth image, the two paired panoramas show the foot of the entire delta that had flowed into Jezero crater in the past and is the prime geological target of the rover. What is it made of? What caused it to flow into the crater? When did it do it? How was Mars different when it did so? Was the crater wet? Was the delta mud when it flowed, or was it sediment under water, pushed out by that flowing water?

The location map to the right is taken from the “Where is Perseverance?” webpage but annotated to show the planned routes of both Perseverance and Ingenuity, as shown by the tan dashed lines. The red dot marks Perseverance present location, the green dot Ingenuty’s. The yellow lines the approximate area covered by the panorama.

What next? Expect Perseverance to move as close to the base of the delta’s cliff as possible and spend at least several months studying it. Ingenuity meanwhile will be flown to the west to scout the various hollows that are potential routes for Perseverance to climb up onto the delta.

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Astroscale demo to test space junk removal struggles with failed thrusters

9:35 am

Capitalism in space: Astroscale demo mission, ELSA-d, has been unable to complete a docking with its target vehicle as planned because four of the eight thrusters on the capture “servicer” vehicle have failed.

Engineers had separated the servicer from the target in January so that it could perform a rendezvous and then docking, from a distance, but that test was halted when engineers detected what the company only labeled as “anomalous spacecraft conditions.” This new announcement reveals what that problem was.

With safety always paramount, the Astroscale team has used a complex mix of burns with the remaining thrusters, aerodynamic drag and the natural perturbations of Earth’s gravity to bring the servicer safely back to a distance where operations can continue.

This revised plan began on February 18th, and has now apparently been mostly completed. However, rather than dock, the company has decided to only approach as close to 160 meters (525 feet) to test some sensors, and then retreat. Whether they will then attempt a recapture remains undecided.

Astroscale’s goal is to convince satellite companies to install its magnetic capture device on their satellites. Astroscale’s servicer could then use it to dock with a defunct satellite and deorbit it or maybe fix it. This demo flight was to prove the rendezvous and capture device worked.

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NASA will not load fuels in SLS upper stage in next dress rehearsal countdown attempt

12:29 am

In the next attempt to complete the first “wet dress rehearsal” of NASA’s SLS rocket tomorrow, April 11th, the dress rehearsal will not be as wet as originally planned.

NASA said April 7 that engineers found a problem maintain helium purge pressure in the ICPS [SLS’s upper stage] after changing out a regulator in the mobile launch platform. At that time, the agency said it was able to restore normal pressure but was still studying the source of the problem, now linked to the faulty valve in the ICPS itself.

Because that issue, NASA now plans to limit the amount of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellant loaded into the ICPS during the WDR. NASA said the countdown rehearsal will be modified with “minimal propellant operations” on the ICPS, but didn’t elaborate on how much propellant would be transferred into the upper stage.

As usual, NASA officials are now making believe that they will achieve all their goals for the dress rehearsal if they complete it without completely fueling the upper stage. This is intellectually dishonest. This dress rehearsal was intended to test all aspects of the rocket’s launch countdown, including the fueling of all its stages. If they complete it without successfully fueling the upper stage, they will not achieve all their goals. Period.

The plan right now is to attempt this revised launch rehearsal tomorrow, then return the rocket to the vehicle assembly building where engineers will replace the faulty valve. At that point it is unclear what the agency will do next.

Though this incomplete test will have taught them a lot, if they do not redo the dress rehearsal with full loading of all stages but instead proceed to a launch attempt in the present target window from June 6 to June 16, they will be doing so with a greater risk. Of course, if the new valve works during that launch attempt, then all should be well. In fact, this risk appears quite reasonable.

Nonetheless, the fundamental problem remains: NASA is under pressure to launch, and held off this kind of testing until very late in the program. Finding these problems now puts serious limits on the ability of the agency to fix them. This in turn puts serious limits on the reliability of SLS.

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Splonk went the crater!

12:59 pm

Splonk went the crater!
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “degraded crater in Utopia Planitia.”

There is a lot of intriguing geology in this one image. First of course is the crater itself. We have to ask, is it from an impact or from some volcanic process? The location, at 44 degrees north latitude, argues that some form of ice or mud process was involved. Maybe we are looking at a frozen eruption from an underground ice layer. If this was instead caused by an impact, the crater’s ringlike structure could have been created by the ripples of melted ice and mud emanating away but then quickly refreezing.

Surrounding the crater are many small fissures, the largest ones all oriented in a north-south direction. If there is an ice layer near the surface, these cracks might be caused by that ice sublimating away. Why the largest cracks orient in the same direction however is a mystery.

The color variations suggest [pdf] dust (red-orange) as well as a variety of minerals (green). Since no blue appears visible in this version of the photo, if this crater was shaped by melting or erupting ice, that ice is well covered by that layer of dust and debris.

The location map below as always provides context.
» Read more

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French company raises €2 million to launch commercial solar sail

9:23 am

Capitalism in space: The French startup Gama has successfully raised €2 million to build and launch its first test solar sail, with the goal of eventually selling those sails for other interplanetary missions.

Gama plans to deploy a 73.3-sq-metre solar sail in a 550km-altitude orbit in October. It will be launched as an additional payload on a SpaceX rocket.

There have been a number of previous solar sail deployment tests by Nasa and the American space advocacy group the Planetary Society. However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency had been the only organisation to successfully sail on sunlight. In 2010 it used a solar sail to power the experimental Ikaros (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun) spacecraft to Venus.

If successful the company will follow with two more test missions in ’24 and ’25, first testing at higher orbit and testing in interplanetary space.

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Starlink delivers 5,000 terminals to Ukraine; loses license in France

9:03 am

Capitalism in space: Starlink today continued its aggressive support for the Ukraine in its war with Russia by delivering another 5,000 terminals to that beleaguered country.

Space reporter Joey Roulette tweeted Wednesday that the majority of the terminals — 3,667, to be exact — as well as the associated internet service were donated directly by SpaceX at a cost of “roughly $10 million,” with USAID purchasing the remaining 1,333 terminals. These numbers apparently came from an earlier version of the USAID release; the updated release doesn’t give dollar figures and refers only to 5,000 Starlink terminals donated by a public-private partnership.

Roulette also suggested in another tweet that France and Poland had made contributions to the Starlink shipments to Ukraine, citing an earlier conversation with SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell. The USAID announcement only refers to the American partnership, however.

In a second story today, however, Starlink lost its ability to provide service in France, when a court ruled its license had been issued improperly.

France’s Conseil d’État ruled April 5 that French telecoms regulator ARCEP should have launched a public consultation before authorizing Starlink in February 2021.

“In law, they should normally cease [providing services] immediately, pending ARCEP’s public consultation” following the court’s decision, a Conseil d’État spokesperson told SpaceNews.

The court case was apparently instigated by two French environmental groups, who are demanding more regulations against the large satellite constellations.

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Relativity still targeting a ’22 first launch

8:56 am

Capitalism in space: The startup rocket company Relativity is still targeting this year for the first test launch of its 3D-printed Terran-1 rocket, according to its CEO Tim Ellis.

The company has raised more than $1 billion in private investment capital.

If successful, Relativity will join Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra as a small satellite launch provider, all capable of launching military and commercial smallsats quickly. The competition will guarantee that their prices will be low as well.

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SpaceX successfully launches Axiom’s first commercial flight to ISS

8:19 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched the first commercial mission to ISS by the private company Axiom, carrying three passengers and one Axiom astronaut as commander.

The replay of the live stream of the launch is embedded below.

The first stage, which landed successfully on the drone ship in the Atlantic, completed its fifth flight. The capsule Endeavour was making its third flight. This is also the second private manned mission launched by SpaceX.

Docking with ISS is scheduled for early tomorrow morning.

All in all, it was a perfect launch, on time and as planned. This has become so routine for SpaceX that we tend to take it for granted. We shouldn’t. Launching people into space remains one of the hardest things humans do, and will likely always be so.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

13 SpaceX
9 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 20 to 9 in the national rankings.
» Read more

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Commercial imaging satellites prove their military worth in the Ukraine War

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: Because of the ability of private commercial satellites to obtain high resolution reconnaissance and radar images of the ground quickly, U.S. intelligence agencies decided right before the Russian invasion of the Ukraine to not only use those satellites, but to funnel that data both to the public and to the Ukraine.

“We partner with over 100 companies, we’re currently using imagery from at least 200 commercial satellites and we have about 20 or so different analytic services in our pipeline,” David Gauthier, director of commercial and business operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), said during a panel discussion at the 37th Space Symposium. “Because of all that, when Russia prepared to invade, we and the NRO [National Reconnaissance Office] increased and accelerated several efforts that were underway commercially,” said Gauthier.

The daily flow of intelligence that previously was only available from government sources and seldom released to the public is no accident, said Gauthier. “This moment has really been set up by a lot of hard work by many companies and many in the government to prepare ourselves to take better advantage of commercial capabilities.”

Leading up to the conflict, he said, “we more than doubled the commercial electro-optical imagery that was bought over Ukraine.” Imagery from companies like Maxar, BlackSky and Planet “was able to flow directly to those who need it, EUCOM [U.S. European Command], NATO and directly to Ukrainians,” Gauthier said.

The military’s increased reliance on reconnaissance imagery from these private commercial satellite constellations during this war is likely to accelerate the military’s switch from building its own big and expensive government satellites — which also launch rarely and provide little redundancy — to using the private sector for its needs.

In other words, the success of the private sector in this area during this war has once again proved the validity of the recommendations in my 2017 policy paper, Capitalism in Space [pdf].

The government should stop being a builder and instead become merely a customer. Let competing private companies do the work. Not only will the government get what it needs faster and for far less, the competition will fuel innovation and prosperity for the American people.

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Update on SpaceX’s Starship/Superheavy operations at Boca Chica

9:22 am

Link here. Though the permitting process for launching Starship from Boca Chica is stalled or maybe even blocked, SpaceX is continuing to use this waiting time to upgrade and improve the design of both Starship and its giant booster, Superheavy, abandoning earlier prototypes for newer versions incorporating those upgrades.

[Superheavy] Booster 4 and [Star]Ship 20, having served as articles to test the ground systems and verify the major design outlines of booster and ship, have now been phased out, with Elon Musk confirming on Twitter that these wouldn’t perform the long-awaited orbital velocity test flight.

Instead, it is now expected that Booster 7 and Ship 24 will be the duo performing this duty. For that same reason, SpaceX cleared the way for Booster 7 by removing Booster 4 from the OLM on March 24.

The company has been doing tank tests and stack tests of these new prototypes at a fast pace, even as it is assembling even newer prototypes.

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ISRO once again delays first launch of its new SSLV rocket

9:12 am

India’s space agency ISRO today announced that it is once again delaying the first launch of its new Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) rocket.

This rocket, designed to launch cubesats and compete with private companies like Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, was first going to launch in the summer of 2019. That launch was delayed until 2020, only to be blocked entirely for two more years because of India’s panic over the Wuhan flu.

Last month ISRO announced the successful completion of static fire tests of the rocket’s solid rocket first stage, suggesting a spring launch in ’22 would occur. That has now been delayed again, now targeting early summer.

The delays have cost India a great deal in market share. Had SSLV launched in 2020, it would have been well positioned to garner business now captured by Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit, and Astra, the latter two of which were not yet operational at that time. Now India trails all these companies, with other American companies (Firefly, Relativity, ABL) on the horizon as well.

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